


the church bells all were broken

by marchadelorca



Category: Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe - Benjamin Alire Sáenz
Genre: Boys In Love, M/M, Mutual Pining, Not Actually Unrequited Love, POV Dante Quintana, Pining, References to Oscar Wilde, Unrequited Love, but hey! the work isn't so much, dante angst, he is always angst, the 80's, u know it's also actually
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-14 10:55:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29417505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marchadelorca/pseuds/marchadelorca
Summary: Since my return to El Paso, it seemed to appear a vicious circle in which the boy in question and I were involved almost with impiety.It felt hard. I always had so many topics of conversation to bring up and Ari (Aristotle, I had to repeat myself, it was also hard to remember my self-imposed control when I couldn't help but notice how the sleeves of his shirt just fit snugly into the curves of his shoulders as if they belonged there forever...and I would love to belong there too), well, he was Ari. It’s not like he had much to answer. He was the king of silence.
Relationships: Aristotle Mendoza & Dante Quintana, Aristotle Mendoza/Dante Quintana
Kudos: 7





	the church bells all were broken

**Author's Note:**

> HAPPY "WE HAVE A NAME AND A DATE OF RELEASE OF ARI AND DANTE'S SEQUEL" DAY!!! <3
> 
> Here's an old story based on this song (www.youtube.com/watch?v=iX_TFkut1PM).  
> You should listen to it while reading, or afterwards!
> 
> Also, English is not my native language. I edited and translated this by myself, so if you read any strange words and expressions...I apologize in advance. Hahaha. :)

The music died the first day I left Texas, I remembered as I started listening to that song in the ARISTOTLE’s Chevy.

Today it was ARISTOTLE, not Ari.

That was how I had decided it with an outrageous conscience, one could say.  
It was not one of those little habits that are spun with a lethargic annoyance by the passage of time and bitterness, no, it was definitely _me_ who with tremendous simplicity said “I'm going to call him Aristotle”. He didn't deserve Ari, he didn't deserve my affection.

And what was it that my dear best friend had done to unleash such a bile inside me? Nothing.

Precisely, _nothing_.

It were several days that we had been behaving like this, and it made my skin itch. It was quiet, Ari -- Aristotle was quiet. But I didn't remember it as strange, either.  
It was strange because it kept me trapped in it, figuratively speaking.

We looked at each other as if the tension could overflow and that made me think that at any moment he would stop talking to me, and at the same time we called each other every day to see what we would do next. He would start the plans.

Every. Fucking. Day.

One of these days I almost left just to argue with him, but I couldn’t. The scent of tobacco and rain made me lose myself in the sight and beyond my house, and also in the anguish of his features.

Was it normal for me to be so attracted to someone's eternally dejected soul? Was it? Was I right or was I manipulated by a heavenly aura that made me flinch at the slightest thing a sad man imposed on me?

“Okay...” I said more to myself than anything else, unable to cope with my pride, my lower lip trembling. I couldn't really be mad at him, it was out of any plan I could make.  
And, even so, if he wanted me to leave him alone I could.

Whatever he asked me to do, I would do it.

“It's all right.” he repeated with the same expressionless grimace as always. Why didn't his face recognize the beauties that the world could sometimes implant in it? Would he have to play poker with me until he died? I’d love to ask him.

And just as I lifted my shoulders pretending to leave, he stopped short with a little throat clearing: “Tomorrow is Friday, do you want to go for a walk?”

And as always I told him yes, too.

My pride, my pride...

It seemed to have hidden in the folds of my ribs.

Since my return to El Paso, it seemed to appear a vicious circle in which the boy in question and I were involved almost with impiety.

It felt hard. I always had so many topics of conversation to bring up and Ari (Aristotle, I had to repeat myself, it was also hard to remember my self-imposed control when I couldn't help but notice how the sleeves of his shirt just fit snugly into the curves of his shoulders as if they belonged there forever...and I would love to belong there too), well, he was Ari. It’s not like he had much to answer. He was the king of silence.

I wish that was the only thing that made my hair stand on end, because I could get used to his fucking silence; no, no, the movements he made were what really _really_ got on my nerves. As much as I didn't want to prove it.

His slight sighs, the way his eyelashes slowly fluttered as he drove, as if he wanted to refrain from who-knows-what-just-Aristotle-thought.

He never seemed to mind too much that I went with my legs raised above the seat and had the window open, although that day...well, he hadn't even turned on the radio station when we got into the red Chevy.

That day, we had no direction.

And I read De Profundis, to kill time. And to kill my questions.

I don't think Wilde was helping me at all.

Well done, Dante. Well done. Choose the gayest author who ever lived on the face of the earth to forget precisely how very gay you are and how much the silence of the damned throws you overboard.

There were phrases that could make me smile and cry at the same time, the irony could be sweet when it was intended.

I had to purse my lips every time I shaded with my index finger something that I would ultimately love to say out loud. And I wasn't going to.

I was afraid.  
I felt exaggerated.  
He didn't want it, -- for me to speak. Of all things.

So I wasn't going to do it.

“Ari. Do you also feel like you are made for exceptions and not laws?”.  
“Ari, do you also believe that love is a divine sacrament that one must take on one's knees and not first believe oneself worthy of it?”.  
“I want you to know I also wrote my letters in order to take the bitterness out of my heart, Aristotle, not to fill your mouth with it. I am sorry for that.”  
“But why didn't you ever want to tell me about the ways you were a teenager and the furrows of your lips and the back-and-forth of your hands?”  
“And if hearts are meant to be broken, don't you think I deserve a hell of a lot more?”.  
“Tell me why, of all things, I can't stop talking to you about love.”  
“My freedom...”.  
“My freedom ended when you didn't tell me all these things, nor that you were shorter, nor dumber; nor more handsome. Most of all, I'm furious that you didn't tell me how handsome you got.”  
“I would love not to fear you, but I definitely fear you, dear. I really do.”  
“You think we're never going to be friends like that again and things have changed resoundingly?”.  
“I hope not, I hope not...”.

And of course, I would ask him if he can read my mind.

That occurred to me later: just as the foolish, shameful tears threatened to crystallize my soul _**“pa'fuera”**_ (just as he would say) in my eyes, just as I held the book tightly, restraining myself from wanting to throw it down the road, Ari-stotle gave me a quick glance. And turned on the radio.

Thank you. Thank you.

_¿Para qué me enamoras, lisonjero, si has de burlarme luego fugitivo?_ _**(*)**_

But thank you, thank you; even though I wanted to cry even more the moment I heard the song.

This time my harsh laughter did not go unnoticed even by his _rough_ demeanor.

“Is that all right?” said my friend, with that concern which he would always refuse to show – that one I always abdicated my whole being to find some ulterior meaning in his supposedly kindness.

“It's okay.” I answered, trying not to look at him. Never again, if that were possible. “It's just that I was hearing this a lot...over there.”

His abstracted “aha” as a murmur made me understand that he would not speak any more fearing I'll burst into tears, and he had every reason to do so.

I would have loved to add more, anyway. Instead I scratched the back of my neck, thinking, and eventually sang without intending too much.  
As the stanzas flooded me with recent memories, I remembered a personal letter I decided never to send him. A letter that in a circus-like paraphernalia I later decided to burn. I did it while passing up my first LSD trip:

“I'm not going to start by saying your name because you already know who I am, the same one who wrote to you without waiting for a reply.

Yesterday in a dream came to me the idea that your body smelled of carnations, and I do not allow you to ask me how my imagination came to such instances. Today there are no reproaches, I say everything and you reproach nothing.

It turns out that among vast imaginations I had pulsating fantasies about Ritchie Valens and Buddy Holly. Yes, out of so many men I had my choice.

Maybe because they remind me a bit of you and me, actually.  
You with your weird fanaticism for Los Lobos and me trying to give back a little of all those wonders that John and Paul gave me.  
Did they kiss before they died?

I don't know, I don't think anyone until now has thought about it. Nobody until Dante Quintana, you would say.

No one.

And tell me, do you believe in rock'n'roll, can music save your mortal soul?

And can you, perhaps and someday, teach me how to really slow dance?

Stop ignoring me. Let me believe that everything will go back to the way it was. For I too would fall in a plane crash so that we'd both be crushed, together and forever. Together and forever.

All yours, Dante.”

And I kept on singing.

And so, one of those miracles that happened every so often occurred.

Had I not been too busy staring blankly ahead and trying to remedy the burnt letter in my head, I might have noticed.  
His eyes narrowed because he knew he was about to listen to some instinct, and the corners of his mouth turned shy. Gesturing upward just where his mustache was forming.

He had turned up the volume and with a little smile he also kept up with me, singing the same.

So he knew the song as well, after all.

I tried to play a little dumb, the one offended by who-knows-what-only-Dante-what, not to succumb to the way he _definitely_ got louder and with more excited singing. 

Not to succumb to any hint of emotion that came from him, from all of him.

But I couldn't.

“Stop.” I told him suddenly, and I left him with a ramshackle expression. “Stop the truck here.”

Still puzzled, but somewhat content, he listened to me.

And what a fool I would be to believe that I could be falsely angry for much longer.

With an even bigger grin than his, I gave him a little shove before turning the volume up to maximum and running awkwardly out my door.

Again, we were in the middle of nowhere.

Outside Don McLean sounded even better and I couldn’t even manage to stifle my laughter that threatened to come out, when I felt the door slam just as loudly from the driver's side. **Ari** (Ari, not Aristotle) was following my madness.

This freedom is mine, not yours, dear friend. You already have everything else.

So I danced, sang the rhythm and blues, and kicked off my shoes before running off with Ari trying to chase me in the background. I jumped in the back of the van and opened one of the beers, just with my crooked teeth.

This also belongs to me. Here my mouth can go.

I think I was a little more me, I think the music came alive.

And I think Ari came back too, when I looked at him and realized that he was watching the show gladly, or at least amused enough not to scold me. He was singing, and a bit of dancing too.

“Will you teach me how to slow dance?” I perked up to sing when the melody compelled.

And I'm not going to lie. I felt my heart squeeze a little bit at the fact that he laughed at that part, because I was saying it with every bit of blood and vein that bound this very sentient body together.

“Will you teach me how to slow dance, Ari? Will you teach me sometime? And I promise not to make you today,” I thought.

And I didn't.

It was enough for me to let him be, to let me be, to let him dance with me from below and laugh even more. Even when I passed him a beer that I held dangerously close to my mouth, even when my bare foot threatened to touch his shoulder.

I had enough just to see it.

Yes, yes, there it was.

He had not left.

I wasn't afraid of him, I wasn't afraid of me, we were still friends. We would remain friends until the end of the world and the miles and words of Oscar Wilde consume me, reduced to chicano ashes. Until alcohol stops bringing us together, until we like whiskey and our lips are parched. Until we are no longer just lonely teenagers in the back of an old Chevy truck, and the earth swallows us up for desecrating it so often and in so many ways. And that the marching bands want to accompany us for being so wonderful; for being you and for forgetting our anguish.

And until we decide to die together falling out of a plane, after the last fatal and best kiss.

**Author's Note:**

>  _ **(*)**_  
>  _“¿Para qué me enamoras, lisonjero, si has de burlarme luego fugitivo?”_ /“Why do you make me fall in love, flatterer, if you will mock me then, fugitive?”.
> 
> It is a recognized fragment of the sonnet “Detente sombra de mi bien esquivo/Stop shadow of my elusive good” written by the Mexican poet Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. 
> 
> She was an exponent of the Golden Age of Spanish literature and was recognized by her contemporaries as the “décima musa/tenth muse”.


End file.
